Fireball Whiskey Barbeque Chicken

Seems like everyone has a bottle of Fireball whiskey hanging around.  
If you haven't tried it, I would recommend you do.  
Delicious.
It got me thinking, what else could I do with this stuff?
Why not barbecue sauce?  It's sweet, its spicy... Fireball is perfect for it.
This is a simple throw together sauce, takes 5 minutes.  You could use minced fresh onions and garlic... but powdered is so easy in this recipe.

This sauce would be equally good on pork, especially Pulled Pork, or beef too.

Makes 4-6 servings (Makes about 1 cup of sauce)
Ingredients
 
4-6 chicken breasts
1/2 cup ketchup
1/4 cup sugar
1/4 cup cider vinegar
1 tsp onion powder
1 tsp garlic powder
1/2 tsp cayenne
1/2 cup Fireball Whiskey
salt and pepper

In a saucepan, over medium heat, add the ketchup, the sugar, the vinegar and spices.  Cook for a couple minutes to thicken and combine flavors.  Add the Fireball and stir to combine.  It may be a bit thin for your liking, so you can continue to cook to thicken it back up a bit.

Cook your chicken to your liking on medium hot grill (or smoker).  Usually about 5 minutes per side, but it depends on the thickness of your chicken breasts.  You want to cook the chicken most of the way, but not completely.  You will finish cooking the chicken with the sauce on it.

Sorry about the bad pictures.... but it was cold and dark out.  We used a smoker, so there aren't any grill marks on the chicken.

Brush on the sauce and cook for another 1-2 minutes per side to "set" the sauce on the chicken.  Serve with a bit of sauce on the side.  This chicken is good cold as leftovers too.

 

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Smoked Pulled Pork Shoulder

It's a bit strange to buy 16 lbs of pork for a household with two people in it.
Yep, that is a BUNCH of meat!
However, you can really make a lot of people very excited by bringing smoked pulled pork to a party or picnic.  It's really our "go to" meal to do for a crowd.  

In addition, you can easily freeze some of the cooked meat so that you can make this for dinner at a future time.  Once I had about 5 containers of shredded pork in the freezer.  It made life very easy for weeks.

In addition to the sandwich below, we also use leftovers for the following ideas- tacos, enchiladas, "hash" with eggs, add to chili, epic fried rice, taco salads, and Loco Moco.

See below for an example dinner below...  I use Spicy Slaw on our sandwiches.

Brant's famous pulled pork

***for 2 pork butts, approx 16lbs in a 5 gallon covered bucket***
2 qts water in saucepan

1 cup sea salt
2 Tbsp rosemary (i use a sprig of fresh, but either works)
6 Tbsp light brown sugar
1/2 Tbsp cumin
2 Tbsp chili powder
2 Tbsp cayenne pepper
2 tsp thyme
1 tsp fennel seed
1 tsp sage (i use a sprig of fresh, but either works)
1 gallon (4 qts) ice water (mix into brine solution after removed from heat and partially cooled)

Brine 24 hours, drain, pat dry and let dry (uncovered) in the fridge over night.

Depending on when you want to serve it, count ahead 12-14 hours.
Want to eat at 5pm on Saturday? Better put your pork on to smoke about 3pm on Friday to be safe.

Two choices... you can rub with a seasoning powder, here's my go-to recipe.
Or, you can skip the rub all togther as the brine has seasoned the pork very well.  
We still go back on forth on this one... to do, or to do not?  That is the question.

Set your Traeger (or other smoker) at 185 degrees for the first couple hours to get some good smoky action going on.  Then turn it up to 225 degrees and leave it for another 10-12 hours. We use a remote thermometer that has a probe in the smoker, and a reader/monitor inside, and watch it carefully until it reaches 200 degrees.  

Take off and let it cool, then pull it with a couple of forks, or the "bear claw" forks made for pulling pork.

You know it's tender when the bones fall out clean!

Here's the meat, getting ready to start shredding!

Here's the claws we use, it makes short work of it, but forks work too.

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Smoked Trout Spread

Someone at my house came home from a guy's weekend with 20 trout not that long ago.
Yep, 20.
He caught 3-4 himself, but many of the other guys caught them but didn't want them.
So, that guy knew what to do.  Bring them home to me.
I love trout, but it IS hard to eat 20 of them.
So, we lightly smoked a bunch of them after a very short brining, and then threw them on the smoker.  We happily ate one each while it was hot and fresh and chilled the rest.
I knew that they were perfect for smoked fish to serve cold, chowder or a trout spread.  

We served this on Thanksgiving and the kids nummied this right up and said how much they wished there was more.

My advice?  When you, or your significant other goes fishing, bring the trout home.  Brine it. Smoke it. Make some Trout spread, some smoked trout chowder and enjoy it!

Makes about 1 1/2 cups

Ingredients

1 boneless smoked trout, (about 8 ounces), reserve about 1/3 cup in chunks

1/2 cup cream cheese, softened

1/4 cup sour cream

1/4 cup onion, minced

1 Tbsp prepared horseradish

1 Tbsp minced green onions

1 Tbsp Dijon mustard

1-2 Tbsp capers

1/2 lemon, juiced

Serve with toasts, crackers, or celery.

Reserve a little of the fish and green onions for a garnish (as pictured).

Discard the head, and skin and flake the trout fillets, picking out any bones if you see any. Puree the cream cheese, sour cream, onion, mustard, capers, lemon juice and horseradish in a mini food processor. Add the fish and pulse to a make a semi- smooth dip. Transfer to a bowl. Refrigerate about 1 hour. It will not be totally firm, but nice and spreadable.

Note: 8 oz of smoked trout took about 3 small trout.

Thanksgiving Smoked Turkey

I feel a little bad sharing this recipe for three reasons.

For one,
I did not write it (except this intro), my hubby did after I implored him to document what he did last year.  My reasoning for posting this is completely selfish... I want to be able to refer to it again, and again.  

For two,
Unless you have a smoker, you probably can't make it.

For three,
Even if you do have a smoker, if your turkey isn't fresh, or already thawed, you can't make it. As of today's date, there just isn't enough time.

Just know one thing, this was the best turkey we ever ate. We are looking forward to recreating it for our annual feast in a couple days.

1 (20-23lb). Butterball self-basting turkey, fresh or thawed

Brine: 

2 gallons cold water

1 1/2 cups kosher salt

1/2 cup brown sugar
3 Tbsp minced garlic
1 Tbsp coarse ground black pepper
1/4 cup Worcestershire sauce  

Brine the turkey refrigerated for 48 hours. 

Pat turkey dry, air dry in refrigerator overnight. We didn't use a rub on the turkey. The brine and smoke flavor were enough.


We have a Traeger, which is an electric, auger feed pellet smoker. 
Clean smoker and place two drip pans under the grid, raised on foil runners to keep them from scorching.  Add a cup of water to each pan.  Use these drippings for the gravy. (Piper's note- don't use only the drippings for gravy, just add 1 cup to 4 cups of broth, it can be stronger than you are used to)

Smoke at 225F for about 2 hours. We used Hickory, the hickory smoke flavor wasn't too strong. This year, we're going to try mesquite chips.

Turn the Smoker up to 350F and bake until probe thermometer in the breast reads 160F. This takes less time than you think, generally a couple of hours. The thigh should read 170F. Remove the bird and let it rest for 1 hour covered with a foil tent,

Total cooking time from start to finish is 4-5 hours. I put the turkey in at 8:15 and it was done before 1pm.  Next year we'll start at 10am and wrap up at 3pm. Then we'll be ready to eat at 4pm.

Meat was moist and flavorful, perfectly seasoned, and tender.

I sure do love you =)

(He wrote that, but I thought you'd like to hear someone to say it to you today... be sure to pass it on to your friends and family). - Piper

Southwestern Grilled Pork Tenderloin

I love living near wine country!
In Washington you can head out to Woodinville, to visit winery's and do some tastings. Okay, so almost all of the vineyards are in Eastern Washington, the tasting rooms are plentiful in Woodinville.  We belong to a lot of the wine clubs, some fancy and some with everyday selections.

Kestrel is one of those wineries... however, they have both fancy and every day choices.  We keep thinking we'll drop our membership, but then we stop in and have a tasting.  We both agree that they are the most friendly and comfortable places to sip and try new wines!  Another perk?  They have two other tasting rooms in the Eastern part of the state, Leavenworth and Prosser.  

This last weekend, we stopped on a Sunday just to see if we had anything to pick up (wink, wink) and to our complete happiness we had two pick ups to take home!  Yay!  
One was a two bottle pack of their 2011 Winemaker's Select co-ferment Syrah.  Inside the bag, was a recipe they shared as perfect to pair with their wine.  

Yup, you guessed it.  It was this one.  Knowing I had two thawed pork tenderloins to use, I made this.  I only changed up the recipe a little, adding salt & pepper to the marinade/paste.

(I forgot to photograph the garlic, but I did use it)

Serves 6
Ingredients

2 pork tenderloin (about 1 1/2 to 2 lbs), any silverskin/membranes removed
5 tsp chili powder
1 1/2 tsp oregano
1 tsp cumin
1/2 tsp salt
1/2 tsp pepper
2 garlic cloves, minced
1 Tbsp olive oil

 In a small bow, mix all the ingredients (except the pork) well into a thick, dark paste.  Rub mixture over all the surfaces of the tenderloins.

 I dabbed the mixture all over the pork and then put them in a bag and "Massaged" them all over- - keeping my hands clean.  Refrigerate and let sit for 2-24 hours.  I did it for about 6 hours, and I thought it was great.

Grill over medium fire, or a smoker at 250 degrees, for about 20-25 minutes.  The internal temperature should reach 145 degrees F.  Remove and cover with foil, letting it rest for 5 minutes before slicing.

Serve with grilled corn on the cob, or a Southwestern Edamame Salad

Here's what it looked like after taking off the grill.